Accelerated planning for urban housing infills: coordination strategies

The outcome of local policies to satisfy residential demand by accelerating urban planning and development is studied here for an infill programme with about 30 plans and a target of 7,000 new suburban dwellings, launched by a mid-sized Swedish city, Gothenburg. Interviews with developers and officials, questionnaires, policy and planning documents including appeals have been analyzed. Three municipal strategies for acceleration were applied: interdepartmental coordination, collaboration with developers and parallel processing of plans and permits. Plans were produced more rapidly, but the goal of parallel work on building permits was seldom achieved. A complex pattern of delay causes has been found and is discussed in the light of coordination strategies. Strong initial focus on the physical design in the detailed development plan overshadowed the need for an early identification of coordination issues throughout the stages of implementation. This emerges as one reason why developers have been reluctant or unable to start detailed design early on, instead of embracing the principle of parallel planning and preparation for a building permit

BIM in construction production: Gains and hinders for firms, projects and industry

The construction industry strives to implement digitalization and Building Information Modelling (BIM). Studies of BIM in construction claim that a pronounced BIM strategy, knowledge of the subject and a willingness to change are important factors to succeed, but even when such conditions are in place, BIM implementation in construction production is scant and has limited impact. So how should the construction industry go from grand digital visions to practical application in reality? By identifying gains, obstacles and success factors on company, project and sector levels the paper aims to set out a road map for successful BIM implementation in construction production. Data sets, both qualitative and quantitative from eleven studies of using BIM in construction production, show that although the industry is making progresses in implementing BIM and digitalization, the full potential is far from realised. Specifically, the research presents an analysis of factors in relation to (1) strategy and innovation, (2) technology, (3) organizing, and (4) ecosystem. Conclusively, all these levels are strongly interdependent and need to be considered by adopting a holistic approach to reach an enhanced implementation

Primary triage nurses do not divert patients away from the emergency department at times of high in-hospital bed occupancy - a retrospective cohort study

Background: Emergency department (ED) overcrowding is frequently described in terms of input- throughput and output. In order to reduce ED input, a concept called primary triage has been introduced in several Swedish EDs. In short, primary triage means that a nurse separately evaluates patients who present in the Emergency Department (ED) and either refers them to primary care or discharges them home, if their complaints are perceived as being of low acuity. The aim of the present study is to elucidate whether high levels of in-hospital bed occupancy are associated with decreased permeability in primary triage. The appropriateness of discharges from primary triage is assessed by 72-h revisits to the ED. Methods: The study is a retrospective cohort study on administrative data from the ED at a 420-bed hospital in southern Sweden from 2011-2012. In addition to crude comparisons of proportions experiencing each outcome across strata of in-hospital bed occupancy, multivariate models are constructed in order to adjust for age, sex and other factors. Results: A total of 37,129 visits to primary triage were included in the study. 53.4 % of these were admitted to the ED. Among the cases referred to another level of care, 8.8 % made an unplanned revisit to the ED within 72 h. The permeability of primary triage was not decreased at higher levels of in-hospital bed occupancy. Rather, the permeability was slightly higher at occupancy of 100-105 % compared to <95 % (OR 1.09 95 % CI 1.02-1.16). No significant association between in-hospital bed occupancy and the probability of 72-h revisits was observed. Conclusions: The absence of a decreased permeability of primary triage at times of high in-hospital bed occupancy is reassuring, as the opposite would have implied that patients might be denied entry not only to the hospital, but also to the ED, when in-hospital beds are scarce

TOTAL BIM PROJECT: THE FUTURE OF A DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION PROCESS

Although the construction industry strives to implement Building Information Modeling (BIM) toimprove efficiency and quality, adoption in the actual construction phase is still limited. However, in Scandinavia,recent years have seen the rise of an idea known as Total BIM - An approach where the BIM is the legally bindingconstruction document and no traditional 2D-drawings are used on-site. In this paper we present a case study of asuccessful Total BIM project. We investigate the prerequisites for – and outcomes of – implementing the Total BIMconcept, where commonly found individual and isolated BIM uses is turned into an all-inclusive approach toachieve a more efficient design and construction process. Our analysis shows that the success was contingent onfactors from within several different areas, including strategy and innovation, organizing, and technology, but alsoon the commitment shown by the construction management company responsible for the project. In addition, threekey elements were identified; BIM as the legally binding construction document, cloud-based model management,and user-friendly on-site mobile BIM software

TOTAL BIM PROJECT: THE FUTURE OF A DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION PROCESS

Although the construction industry strives to implement Building Information Modeling (BIM) to improve efficiency and quality, adoption in the actual construction phase is still limited. However, in Scandinavia, recent years have seen the rise of an idea known as Total BIM - An approach where the BIM is the legally binding construction document and no traditional 2D drawings are used on-site. In this paper we present a case study of a successful Total BIM project. We investigate the prerequisites for – and outcomes of – implementing the Total BIM concept, where commonly found individual and isolated BIM uses is turned into an all-inclusive approach to achieve a more efficient design and construction process. Our analysis shows that the success was contingent on factors from within several different areas, including strategy and innovation, organizing, and technology, but also on the commitment shown by the construction management company responsible for the project. In addition, three key elements were identified; BIM as the legally binding construction document, cloud-based model management, and user-friendly on-site mobile BIM software

Life cycle assessment of lignin-based carbon fibres

Lignin-based carbon fibres may replace both glass fibres and fossil-based carbon fibres. The objective of this study was to determine the environmental impact of the production of lignin-based carbon fibres using life cycle assessment. The life cycle assessment was done from cradle to gate and followed an attributional approach. The climate impact per kg of lignin- based carbon fibres produced was 1.50 kg CO2,eq. In comparison to glass fibres, the climate impact was reduced by 32% and the climate impact of fossil-based carbon fibres was an order of magnitude higher. A prospective analysis, in which the background energy system was cleaner, showed that the environmental impact of lignin-based carbon fibres will decrease and outperform the glass fibres and fossil-based carbon fibres from a climate impact point-of-view. The constructed LCA model can be applied in further studies of products that consist of or use lignin-based carbon fibres

Atmospheric dynamics and the mass loss process in red supergiant stars

Red supergiant stars represent a key phase in the evolution of massive stars. Recent radiative hydrodynamic simulations suggest that their atmospheres may be the location of large-scale convective motions. As supergiant convection is expected to generate supersonic motions and shocks, we seek constraints on these atmospheric motions and their possible relation with mass-loss rates. We present high-resolution, visible spectroscopy of a sample of red supergiants (spectral type M I) and analyse them with a tomographic technique. We observe steep velocity gradients, characterising both upward and downward supersonic motions, which are time variable on time scales of a few hundred days. These convective motions will generate turbulent pressure, which will strongly decrease the effective gravity. We suggest that this decrease, combined with radiative pressure on molecular lines, initiate the mass loss in red supergiant stars.Comment: Accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics. 12 pages, 14 figure

FROM TOOL-MAKING TO TOOL-USING - AND BACK: RATIONALES FOR ADOPTION AND USE OF LCC

Real estate- and property owners\u27 rationales behind the adoption of Life Cycle Costing (LCC) respectively how LCC is actually used in renovation projects, is investigated through empirical data from a questionnaire survey sent to managers in Swedish real estate organisations. The study shows a positive attitude towards LCC. It is perceived to as a flexible and multi-functional tool with a familiar monetary format. Nevertheless, the study also reveals simplistic and undeveloped views of how to use LCC. While much research has focused on developing sophisticated LCC tools, the findings indicate that practitioners\u27 interest in these refinements seems limited. The importance of understanding that LCC is used in a context of multiple and partly competing institutional logics of renovation is emphasised. The paper contributes to a more informed research in development of LCC tools as well as better informed LCC use among real estate and property owners

Genome-scale metabolic network reconstruction of model animals as a platform for translational research

Genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) are used extensively for analysis of mechanisms underlying human diseases and metabolic malfunctions. However, the lack of comprehensive and high-quality GEMs for model organisms restricts translational utilization of omics data accumulating from the use of various disease models. Here we present a unified platform of GEMs that covers five major model animals, including Mouse1 (Mus musculus), Rat1 (Rattus norvegicus), Zebrafish1 (Danio rerio), Fruitfly1 (Drosophila melanogaster), and Worm1 (Caenorhabditis elegans). These GEMs represent the most comprehensive coverage of the metabolic network by considering both orthology-based pathways and species-specific reactions. All GEMs can be interactively queried via the accompanying web portal Metabolic Atlas. Specifically, through integrative analysis of Mouse1 with RNA-sequencing data from brain tissues of transgenic mice we identified a coordinated up-regulation of lysosomal GM2 ganglioside and peptide degradation pathways which appears to be a signature metabolic alteration in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) mouse models with a phenotype of amyloid precursor protein overexpression. This metabolic shift was further validated with proteomics data from transgenic mice and cerebrospinal fluid samples from human patients. The elevated lysosomal enzymes thus hold potential to be used as a biomarker for early diagnosis of AD. Taken together, we foresee that this evolving open-source platform will serve as an important resource to facilitate the development of systems medicines and translational biomedical applications